


How to Lose a Spy in 10 Days

by Callioope



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days AU, Romantic Comedy, The RebelCaptain Rom-Com Challenge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 10:39:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13832424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callioope/pseuds/Callioope
Summary: Jyn Erso knows how to disappear.Cassian Andor has never lost a mark.When Cassian hires “Liana Hallik” for a high-stakes mission, he thinks he’ll be able to recruit her to the rebellion full time. But Jyn did away with the rebellion when Saw Gerrera did away with her, and she has no intention of ever going back.She’s just not used to someone coming back to her.Can she shake Cassian from her trail?Does she even want to?





	How to Lose a Spy in 10 Days

**Author's Note:**

> Welll look who's posting the submission for the Rom-Com challenge on the last day possible? And look at that, I'm not done at all. But I did reach 5,000 words so I hope that counts for something. I've really been thinking about this idea forever, before the challenge was even announced, but I was caught up with Whatever I Do and kept putting this on the backburner. Now it apparently doesn't want to get written.
> 
> Anyways -- while there are parts of the movie _How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days_ that are hmmm not so great, I did love the idea of putting Cassian and Jyn at odds with each other because their skills are so perfectly matched. Also? Some of the songs on the soundtrack are like weirdly on point for this ship: "Feels Like Home" and "Follow You Down"? Come on. 
> 
> Also! I read _Rebel Rising_ as research for this, so you'll see some bits from that referenced. More notes at the bottom.

Jyn Erso knows how to disappear.

Forging documents, stealing ships, and fleeing from law enforcement: all second nature to her, as natural as breathing, as surviving, as being.

She disappears into shadows, watches stormtroopers run past her none the wiser. She disappears into crowds, shuffles along, bumping shoulders and moving with the masses. She disappears onto transports and shuttles and stolen ships; she buys tickets under fakes names and drops hot ships off at junkers, where they’re sold for parts; she flies across the galaxy as no one, a shadow, a ghost, never noticed until she’s already gone.

She can disappear entirely, shuck a name, an identity, as quickly as trading an old jacket for something new.

This time is no different.

Close, maybe.

But no different.

She does not get caught.

#

Jyn lands on Takodana five months after leaving Five Points system.

She hasn’t thought about Five Points since she parted with Blue and her crew, but now, as her boots press into soil and she breathes in _green_ , she thinks of it, of the station lightyears away. She thinks of harsh lines and cold durasteel and rooms like cubbies and most of all, Commander Solange’s office, Admiral Rocywn’s crisp, Imperial uniform and icy eyes, and the ultimatum that almost, _almost_ was the end of her.

Five Points and Takodana, opposites entirely in regards to composition; similar, perhaps with respect to general clientele. But what really reminds her of the Imperial-occupied gambling haven as she looks up at an old, stone fortress is the bad feeling in her gut.

It’s the warning, the alarm bells going off in her head, the sirens reminding her: don’t go back.

Returning to a place—that’s a bad idea. It’s asking for trouble.

But it’s too late now.

She’s expected. She has an appointment. And, well, she’s already made it this far.

Takodana has always offered the best opportunities. There’s a reason she spent almost a year here, a reason she almost settled down again (and it’s nothing to do with the smells of grass and mud and water, how they remind her of some other planet from long ago). The reason is money, the reason is survival.

Her boots leave prints in the dirt and leave dirt on the mossy stone staircase, but otherwise, she knows she’s left no trace.

( _“They’re tracking us,” she’d told Blue, stamping down rising guilt, skipping over the part where it was her fault. She was only ever doing what needed to be done; she hadn’t had a choice in the beginning. But now she did. She’s going to make sure they get away. “But I can figure out how to stop it.”_ )

The door slides open and the noise of the bar at once alarms and soothes her; the blast of music, of growls and squawks from whoever gathers here today, blasts away the last of unwanted memories clinging to her like cobwebs. The walls of the short corridor lean into each other to form a triangle, strange architecture that she supposes makes taller figures somewhat claustrophobic, but has little effect on her.

A large fire roars at the center of the main room; in another life, she might even describe the cantina as _cozy_ , but that’s the kind of adjective she avoids.

Through a crowd comprised more of aliens than humans, she searches for a familiar face, and fails. With a shrug, she pushes her way to the back, towards an empty booth in the corner that may or may not be familiar. She slides in, easing into the shadows to glare out at the room around her.

While she waits, she fiddles with her code replicator, until finally a figure slides into the seat across from her.

“Hello, Maz,” she says.

#

Cassian finds Xosad Hozem at the back of the crowded cantina.

“She’s been here about a week,” the Twi-lek says, once they’ve cycled through pleasantries and rebellion code recitation. _By the light of Lothal’s moons…_ well, it’s dark in this castle. Cassian sits back in the booth, leans back into the shadows, and watches Hozem’s face.

He’s never met him before, but he’s read enough reports to have already formed an impression of him. (It’s not exactly flattering.)

Hozem takes a sip of his drink, tries to look nonchalant, bored, but he shuffles in the long pause that Cassian takes before his next question.

“Have you talked to her?” Cassian asks.

Hozem’s mouth reveals several sharp, pointed teeth as he smirks. “No.”

 _He_ is _hiding something_ , Cassian thinks. “Why not?”

Hozem has been recruiting on Takodana for several months now; he should be on the lookout for precisely this type: aimless and skilled, anyone who floats between jobs, anyone with a history of working with rebellion agents before. And Cassian knows this particular potential recruit has. He’d sent word, as soon as he’d picked up her trail again and discovered it led to Takodana. Kriff, Hozem would even have Maz’s help and support.

She ought to be an obvious asset, even to Xosad Hozem, and she ought to be an easy sell.

And that is why, when Hozem outright _laughs_ at Cassian’s question, Cassian’s neutral mask slips away into surprise.

It takes another moment for Hozem to collect himself and say anything valuable. “You’re—you’re serious?” he says.

Cassian frowns and nods. Of course.

Hozem sobers up, mirroring Cassian’s frown, and gazes out across the cantina, eyes unfocused and vaguely pointed in the farthest corner opposite them.

“What do you actually know about her?” he finally says.

This, also, takes Cassian by surprise—that Hozem might in fact know more than him, despite having apparently avoided her. It’s not particularly that Cassian is proud or arrogant; it’s just that he’s cumulatively spent more than a couple months tracking her down. He’d assumed Intelligence already knew anything worth knowing.

This is what he knows about Liana Hallik:

She first appears in any Imperial records as _Tanith Ponta_ , a name later revealed to be a pseudonym, at Five Points System about four years ago. Her wreck of a ship sold for junk for a little over one hundred credits. Couldn’t get much for a ship with the melted remains of another embedded into it. Commander Solange—whose gambling problem was _not_ cited in the Imperial records Cassian had filched for the rest of this information—discovered the forged codes Ponta had left behind in her sold ship and brought her in, ostensibly, for this crime.

Other sources, much harder to trace than Solange’s poorly guarded files, had indicated this was not the case; that Solange had contracted her for some personal mission related to human trafficking and one of the casinos on the station. The slaves, Cassian had noted, never reached their destination, and Tanith Ponta disappeared.

She’s untraceable for several years until, surprisingly—probably desperate—she turns up back at Five Points and starts forging codes for a rebellion group through their contact, Risi Amps. It doesn’t take long for Solange to find her again and rope her into another scheme, this one overseen by an actual Admiral and in the name of the Empire.

“They could have found Base One,” Blue had explained, as she’d told him the rest of this story. “They _would_ have. She’d installed their tracking code into our computer.”

What he’d read in Blue’s expression, all at once, was betrayal and regret and gratitude.

“How’d you find out,” he’d prompted.

Blue had looked up at him. “She told us. She helped us get away.”

“She broke an Imperial tracking code?”

Blue had shrugged. “I don’t know. We had to take a roundabout route, she had us sell the ship. It was very convoluted.”

“And in the end,” Cassian had said, watching Blue’s face intently. “She didn’t want to stay?”

As Blue had nodded, the regret shifted into guilt. “The separation was ... mutual.” This last word came out a little softer. “She saved us, captain,” Blue went on, “but only from a situation of her own making. And we couldn’t stick around with someone with an Imperial target on her back.”

He’d understood, perfectly, of course. (There’s a reason he regularly leaves K-2SO behind on the ship, on so many missions.) But this logic has caused him some recent headaches.

Blue could only tell him where they’d left her, the name Liana Hallik, and the kind of work she’d done for them—an estimation of her skill sets.

Skill sets that were currently a high priority on Intelligence’s recruitment wish list.

Tracking her _here_ , to Takodana, had taken more cunning and resourcefulness than Cassian usually required to locate someone without a professional security detail. She’d predictably dropped the Liana Hallik ident, since it’d been compromised in Five Points.

But there’s always a trail. Always a record, a log, someone who remembers a face.

And Cassian Andor has his own skill sets.

Hozem is waiting for an answer, staring at him expectantly, amused.

“I think the real question is,” Cassian says, face returning to the familiar neutral mask. “How much do _you_ actually know about her?”

Hozem sighs and looks down into his drink. “Hm.”

Internally, Cassian rolls his eyes.

Hozem looks back across the room. When he finally speaks again, his voice is soft and tired and defeated, “Why does Intelligence want her?”

For the third time, Cassian is, frustratingly, surprised. Hozem’s demeanor has shifted entirely, seems to emanate with exasperation and protectiveness, the latter of which goes entirely against everything Cassian knows about this man.

“The same reason we want anybody.”

Hozem sighs again, closes his eyes. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

“How do you know her?” Cassian tries again, trying this time for gentle curiosity.

“Saw Gerrera.”

“She’s a Partisan?” Cassian blurts out. Impossibly, Liana Hallik has just become even _more_ valuable to rebel intelligence. It seems too good to be true—someone with the right skills, who might even have intel on the very project he needs those skills for. If the rebellion was in the habit of writing recruitment ads, he couldn’t have asked for a better fit.

Hozem raises his mug and takes a long sip of his drink. “Not anymore,” he finally answers.

“Is she still in contact with Saw Gerrera?”

Hozem shakes his head. “No. They had a huge falling out.” He shoots a warning glance Cassian’s way. “I don’t know the details, before you ask.”

Cassian shifts back, falling into shadow once more. Liana Hallik, former Partisan, expert at faking scan docs, generating passable Imperial codes, erasing and falsifying ship logs. Yes, the rebellion has members in intelligence that can already do these things, but not half as well, if Blue’s to be believed. If she worked with Saw Gerrera… Idryssa had mentioned Gerrera’s unyielding obsession with this particular Imperial project. It could be possible that Hallik might know details Idryssa herself hadn’t. Unlikely, but possible. Idryssa had broken off her ties with Gerrera years ago.

“How long has it been?” Cassian asks.

Hozem hesitates. “Six years.”

That’s still more recent than Idryssa, or even Hozem.

“How long did she work with him?”

Hozem grips his mug a little tighter and endulges in another long swig. “Why don’t you go ask her yourself?” he finally says, when he sets his cup down on the table with a louder thunk than necessary. “She’s right over there.”

Cassian at last follows Hozem’s gaze across the bar, squinting in the dim light, until he spots a Wookie that at first appears to be sitting alone, until he sees a young woman hiding in the shadows across from him.

He cannot see her face, can barely see her at all, and although Cassian is rational, has always relied on his logic and reasoning, something in his gut tells him: this woman will be the break in this mission that the rebellion needs.

“Wait,” Hozem says, and Cassian realizes he’s already started sliding out of the booth. “You should know. She doesn’t like the rebellion.”

“She worked with Blue.”

Hozem snorts. “Under what conditions?”

 _Coercion,_ Cassian admits, internally. And Blue _had_ been blunt about her: Liana could be evasive, noncommittal, had repeatedly tried to dissuade them from continuing their work against the Empire, even while denouncing Imperials in the same breath.

When he doesn’t hear an answer, Hozem smirks again, although it’s a little subdued, more worried. “I thought as much.”

“She has no love for the Empire,” Cassian tries.

Hozem shrugs. “It won’t help you.”

But what Cassian knows of her work history suggests a lingering sympathy for the rebellion. He can work with that.

Hozem shakes his head, as if reading his thoughts. “You can’t recruit this one. Not even you.”

Cassian slides out of the booth. “I guess we’ll find out.”

As he walks away, he hears Hozem mutter, “I tried to warn you.”

#

“Five hundred, that’s the lowest I’ll go.”

Jyn doesn’t look up as Maz slides into her booth, but she hears a loud snort in response.

It’s been seventeen minutes since the Wookie retreated across the cantina, to discuss her fees with his captain, and about sixteen minutes since she overheard his whining warble from across the bar. When she looked up from her code replicator, she’d spotted him complaining _directly_ to Maz, and sure enough, Maz had turned in her direction, nodded, and waved the Wookie away.

And then Maz had wasted fifteen minutes, gabbing with other patrons (even the man in the booth next to her) as she ‘casually’ made her way to Jyn.

Maz waves her hand. “You can handle your own negotiations.”

Jyn purses her lips together, but otherwise says nothing.

“So,” Maz says. “You’ll work with Solo?”

“If he pays enough,” she says. She’s already started on a scan doc; even if Captain Solo says no, it never hurts to have a few saved and ready.

“You _sound_ like Han,” Maz says.

Jyn looks up and sets her replicator aside. “What’s his deal, then? His first mate mentioned wanting to avoid a repeat of recent _situations_.”

“He got boarded. Had to dump his cargo.”

“Hm.” Jyn nods. “How much did he lose?”

“What’s more important,” Maz says, eying her through thick glasses, “is that there’s a fifty-thousand-credit bounty on his head because of it.”

Jyn whistles at that; and idly, some voice back at the back of her mind, too curious for its own good, wonders if there’s any kind of bounty on her head and how much it might be.

“Who’s looking for him?”

It’s not that she cares, particularly (because of that likely bounty on her own head), but she would like to know if she’s to expect any kind of Imperial entanglements because of him.

“The Hutt Cartel.”

“The Hutt Cartel,” Jyn repeats, frowning. “He was working with — ”

“Han’s got a good heart,” Maz says quickly, before Jyn can say _with slavers_. “And he’s gotten a little lost. Like someone else I know.”

Still frowning, Jyn reaches for her replicator. At least there’d be no risk of getting dragged back into the rebellion conflict again.

After a moment of fiddling with her replicator, Jyn says flatly, “Five hundred is still my final offer.”

“Liana…” Maz starts. Jyn suspects this tone has nothing to do with her price, and more to do with the comment she’d ignored. _You can’t be_ lost _,_ she thinks, _if there’s nowhere you belong._

“It’s Avice, now,” is all she says.

Maz sighs. “What is a name, after all,” she says idly, low and under her breath, a musing to no one in particular and very pointed towards Jyn.

Even as she frowns, Jyn keeps her focus on her replicator.

“Sooner or later, you will want someone to call you by your real name,” Maz says soft and gentle, sincere and _concerned_ . It reminds Jyn of someone else — of _several_ someone elses — and she flinches. “Whatever that might be.”

Jyn’s finger slips and she jams a button too hard on her replicator, accidentally deleting the last bit she’d been working on. She drops the device on the table and looks up.

“If you’re really not here to represent Captain Solo’s interests,” Jyn says, “then why are you here?”

It’s not fair to be this curt with someone who has only helped her in the past; someone who has helped her without even knowing anything about her, except her skills and—whatever she claims to see in Jyn’s eyes.

And Maz, with all her patience, looks up at her through her glasses, brown eyes as wide as innocence. Jyn sees through that, of course, but the guilt of having snapped at the closest being in the galaxy she might have to a friend keeps her silent.

“I’ve known Han Solo for two years,” Maz says, settling back in her seat. “I’ve known Han Solo for centuries. That sort of spirit walks into my cantina everyday. Running from something. Searching for something. They never notice they’re running in circles. Running from the very thing they seek.”

She watches Jyn through her glasses, pausing, waiting, but Jyn offers no guess to the unasked question.

“What do you seek?”

Jyn scoffs, looks away, out towards the rest of the cantina. She sees smugglers and thieves and droids, and they are all blessed strangers in her eyes, people who don’t look back at her, people apathetic to her blank gaze, scanning the room, people who want nothing to do with her, who don’t pry, who don’t try for friendship or anything more.

“I came here,” Jyn says slowly, and she’s already cringing inside for what she’s about to say, what she’s about to do _again_ , for telling _Maz_ off, “for business opportunities. Not a lecture.”

Maz says. “Yes, I know.” She sighs and starts sliding out of her booth. “I have found just that for you. One that will pay quite a bit more than five hundred credits. Yes, I think you’ll find it pays quite handsomely.” She smirks at herself at the last word, then hops off her seat. “Captain?” she says, to the man in the next booth.

Jyn expects to see Han Solo, but she saw him once, across the bar, when Chewbacca had pointed him out. This man is not Han Solo.

She understands Maz’s joke the second the man appears from around the back of the seat. Handsome, yes. Tall, but sort of hunched and unassuming. Dark hair just almost hangs over friendly eyes that crinkle just slightly as his lips tilt up in the barest of smiles.

“Cassian Andor,” he says.

“Avice,” she says, slowly, as if she’s only just started using the pseudonym, even though she’s had it for several months now. Since Hallik was compromised. “Avice Devra.”

Maz gestures towards the booth and Cassian slides in without another word.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Maz says. Under her magnifying lenses, the glint in her eyes is diabolic. Jyn puts up a hand, but her protest can’t escape her lips before Maz is gone.

She turns to Cassian. He’s waiting, watching her, his smile more a memory than still present on his face, but even neutral and intent, he seems—earnest.

She doesn’t like how casual he seems, how unaffected; something about it itches her skin and she shifts in her seat.

But she maintains her glare.

“So,” she says, raising her eyebrows, crossing her arms. “What will it be?”

His eyes widen; how could someone looking for clients be this disinterested? This abrupt? (Because Maz is involved, and it smells like a trap. A well-intentioned, dirty trap.) But he recovers quickly and gestures to her replicator. “Codes. Fake idents. Scan docs.” He pauses, eyes flicking over her face. “Light infiltration.”

She snorts, stamps down on even a trace of amusement at this last request. Whatever ‘light’ infiltration means. She can clarify details later, if it’s worth it. “How much?”

“Eight thousand.”

She cannot hide her astonishment, and his own smug amusement ghosts across his face.

“ _Why_?” She says — and then, to make it clear she’s not questioning the valuation of her own skills, she adds, “What for?”

He sighs, glances away for just a second, before turning back to her. “Consider it a personal vendetta.”

She arches an eyebrow.

He stares back at her, offering nothing more.

What’s the catch? Eight thousand credits, that’s going to cover some kind of inherent risk.

He’s hiding something.

“Against whom?” she finally asks.

“Durasteel tycoon,” he says. “His factories enslave thousands. Including…”

“Your family?” she supplies.

He nods slightly.

She leans back in her seat, tracing a grain in the wood table.

“A rescue, then?” she asks.

His eyes fall to the table, watch her fingers form invisible shapes on its surface. “Too late for that.”

She nods, allows a moment of silence before she asks, “Where?”

“Bonadan,” he says.

She hasn’t heard of it, and just stares at him blankly until he elaborates.

“It’s at the far end of the Hydian Way,” he says, and he puts a hand up before she can completely balk at this location, across the entire galaxy, “but we’ll intercept him on Denon.”

Scowling, she looks away, back out across the bar. (Tangentially, she notices the Wookie has vanished, from sight and hearing.)

Denon, that’s closer, sure. (Anything would be closer than the opposite end of the galaxy.) And that’s about the only advantage. Not entirely under Imperial control, it sure seems to be heading that way, and besides, it’s an Inner Rim planet. Eight thousand credits; inherent risk.

She turns back to him, examining his face; and etched there she sees all the proper notes of anger, regret, determination.

Vengeance; that can be dicey. And familial loss, that hits a little too close to home.

And there’s something suspicious about his whole calculated demeanor.

But.

Eight thousand credits.

“How can you afford this?” she asks. She knows nothing about him, except his acquaintance with Maz and the little he’s already told her. Where is he getting her salary from?

The corner of his lip twitches just slightly; she blinks and wonders if she imagined it. “Corporate rivals,” he says with a shrug.

He’s on the payroll of some competitor then.

“I’m on an expedited timeline,” he finally says, leaning forward. “Any other questions? Or should I keep looking?”

She cannot read anything in his expression. She knows he’s rushing her intentionally, trying to push her into quick agreement. For a moment, just for that, she nearly spits out a ‘no,’ wonders if that might inspire the same initial shock she’d seen when she’d started this conversation.

But she keeps coming to that paycheck. She could probably settle down somewhere with that. Find some backwater, Outer Rim planet. Maybe get a regular job somewhere, a job that doesn’t attract rebels wanting to drag her back into the fight. She could keep her head down. Move on.

And Maz knows him. Maz trusts him. And Maz practically shoved him at her.

(A well-intentioned, dirty trap indeed. This question is, what’s her angle? What does Maz think Jyn actually wants?

She doesn’t really have time to puzzle that out.)

She looks him over again, how he leans into the shadow, how dark circles gather under dark eyes, how smiles only ghost over his face and won’t linger, how his eyes crinkle with practiced friendliness.

An affectation of casualness. Hiding something. Well, anyone who walks into Maz’s cantina is probably hiding something.

She knows how to get away. If she can avoid the Empire, she can slip one man, whoever he is.

Whatever game he’s playing, she can best him at it.

“Plenty,” she says. “For later. When do we leave?”

He grins.

#

Cassian gives her an hour to gather her things and wrap up any other business.

He has his own preparations to handle.

He looks up at K-2, already seated in the cockpit.

“That was quicker than calculations anticipated,” K-2 says over his shoulder, not pausing in whatever preliminary takeoff procedures he’s immersed in.

Someone just meeting Kay—like Avice, or Liana, or Tanith, whatever her actual name is—might hear this as a neutral observation. Cassian hears a tone of hesitant relief. He can’t bring a reprogrammed Imperial droid into a place like Maz’s cantina, not a place supposedly neutral. Too many smugglers, thieves, criminals would want to shoot him before he took two steps in.

No doubt, his circuits are rusting with boredom, evidenced by the fact that Cassian had only commed him several minutes ago and he’d already started preparing to leave.

“I found her,” Cassian responds, dropping his bag on the row of crew seats.

“And recruited her?” K-2 asks, all surprise and doubt.

“Employed her,” Cassian says. K-2 will not like the rest of this. “Listen, Kay. Don’t mention the rebellion around this one.”

K-2 swivels his head around again and his yellow eyes glow a little brighter. “Is she Imperial?”

“No,” Cassian says, quickly, and K-2 continues to stare. “But… she’s not a fan.”

“Not a fan?” K-2’s eyes flash. “I hope she’s aware this isn’t a galactic sporting competition.”

Cassian smirks as he moves towards his communication console, but it fades as quickly as it forms. He’s going to need an explanation for K-2, and not just his personality.

“And you trust her?” K-2 asks.

“I don’t need to trust her,” Cassian says, picking up his headset, “except to do her job. And that she’ll do.”

Eight thousand credits had been more than enough to convince her; perhaps he could have gone a little lower. But he needed to be sure. He needed to entice her enough just to get his foot in the door; Maz had even suggested as much unprompted, and in so doing had confirmed his plan.

Hozem might believe Liana Hallik could not be recruited to the rebellion, but Cassian’s recruited more difficult agents. He’s fully justified in doubting Hozem’s judgment there. Hozem could be flaky, anyways; and he made a clumsy recruiter at times, tipping their hand and putting worlds in danger, for the Alliance’s mere presence, for the planet’s mere association with the rebellion.

No one would blame him for taking Hozem’s notes with a grain of salt.

Even assuming Hozem is right, assuming he can’t recruit Hallik to the cause (and for what it’s worth, he thinks he can—he hopes he can), that’s not really what he needs.

He just needs her skills. He needs her information. He needs her work.

So she doesn’t need to _know_ she’s working with the rebellion.

At least not at first.

Maybe by the end of this, she just might change her mind.

#

The way Jyn sees it, eight thousand credits more than covers the loss of five hundred.

But Cassian gave her an hour, and she might as well use it. She’s already sold her ship. (She’ll have to leave it behind here, anyways, and with her new income she can buy a better one.)

“Listen, sister,” Han Solo says, pointing his finger.

She speaks before he can continue. “Three hundred, if you pay now.”

He lowers his hand. A frustrating smirk climbs the side of his face. “I told you, Chewie.”

The Wookie growls.

“I don’t know, maybe you’re not as charming.”

“Here,” Jyn says, holding out two scandocs. Solo reaches for them, and she pulls them back. “Payment, first.”

“Alright,” he says. He reaches into his bag, pulls out a sack of credits. She waits, glancing at it and then meeting Solo’s eyes, until he opens it and lets her look inside.

“Not so hard, is it,” she says, handing the scandocs over. She shoves the purse into her duffel bag and starts towards the door.

She’s halfway there when she hears Solo cry out.

“Hey—what about the codes?”

“You get what you pay for,” she shouts over her shoulder.

And that, she thinks, is the last she’ll ever see of Han Solo.

#

Cassian has docked his ship on the far side of the lake, somewhat set back from the water, obscured by trees and vegetation. This doesn’t strike her as particularly odd, not with the types who frequent Maz’s cantina.

It’s only as she steps aboard that the first alarm bells start ringing.

In the very middle of the cabin, she runs into a six-chair collapsible seat that looks more like something she might have seen on one of Saw’s ships than a regular civilian transport. And there’s no sleeping quarters. She hadn’t gotten a good look at the ship’s exterior, through the trees, and she’s hardly an expert on starships, but she has spent a good portion of the last four years flying in them.

This is a military ship.

“Avice Devra!”

She startles at the sound of her alias, twisting her neck towards the cockpit.

It takes two seconds to scan the towering droid standing on the raised platform of the cockpit, gray plating decorated with a blazing white _Imperial_ insignia, for her to draw her blaster and raise it.

But she doesn’t shoot. Not yet.

The droid glances curiously at her blaster, but otherwise does nothing. “I’m Kay-Tuesso,” he says, with a strangely cheerful tone considering a blaster is pointed at his head. “I’m a reprogrammed Imperial droid.”

She doesn’t have time for any follow up questions, not that she’d been ready with any one in particular, before she hears Cassian shouting.

“Wait!”

From the forest, the direction she came in, she sees him rushing forward, a black crate slightly hindering his speed. She lowers her blaster.

“I see you met Kay-Tu,” he says, climbing aboard. With her blaster no longer pointed at his droid, the urgency has faded from his voice, replaced with a sort of chagrined humor. “I should have warned you.”

 _No kidding_ , she thinks. She shrugs and holsters her blaster.

Andor sets down his crate and gestures toward K-2. “We’ll need him for the mission,” he says.

“Light infiltration,” she says.

One of those blink-and-you-miss-it smiles flits across his face. “Exactly.”

He turns back to the crate to secure it with several others. Behind her, she hears K-2’s footsteps clank towards the pilot seating.

“Denon is Imperial occupied,” he says, straightening up to look at her. “Is that going to be a problem for you?”

“I could ask the same of you,” she says. His eyebrows twitch slightly. “This is a military ship. But I don’t think this model’s Imperial.”

“Of course not,” he says, after a brief pause. “Too old for that. Probably something used in the Clone Wars.”

She doesn’t know enough about ships to verify this, but she knows other things.

“The rebellion likes to use those kinds of ships.”

He shrugs and moves past her. “I bought it cheap off a junker. I don’t know what it did before that.”

“They’ll probably check your log on Denon,” she says.

“That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?” he shoots back. His hand hovers on a button by the door. “Unless you’re backing out?”

“I’ll need payment up front,” she says, suddenly. Something shifts in his face and she catches a glimpse of something darker. Instead of twitching up, his lips tilt down. Before he can say anything, before he can sneer or laugh in her face, she insists: “Trust goes both ways.”

It’s still several moments before he finally says, “How much?”

“Half.”

“Half,” he does laugh now, just a soft huff, with no humor. “A thousand.”

“You want to fly into an Imperial-occupied world,” she says, stepping towards him. “In the Inner Rim with a suspicious-looking ship, and I haven’t even heard the logistics of this ‘light infiltration’ you’re planning.” She stops close enough to him that he has to angle his head down. “Thirty-five hundred.”

“You accepted the offer with what I already told you,” he says. “Fifteen hundred.”

“Twenty-five hundred, and you start telling me the plan now.”

“Twenty-five hundred,” he says, “and you’ll hear it after we jump to lightspeed.”

Is she really this desperate for money? Accepting a high payout with barely any details?

 _Maz knows him_ , she reminds herself. _Maz would not put me in a situation I can’t handle_.

And it’s better than working for someone with ties to the Hutt Cartel.

She’ll take the money and slip him, and she won’t ever have to run jobs like this again.

She gives a short nod, and he presses the button. The door slides shut.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Jyn's new alias** : Sorry if this was confusing, but I had to give her a new one because in _Rebel Rising_ , her Liana Hallik pseudonym is compromised. 
> 
> Yes, I spent way more time choosing her new name than I should have. Turns out, all of Jyn's aliases are very nature-themed, so I wanted to continue that thread. So "Avice" is a spelling of "Avis," for "bird". But also, Behind The Name tells me it is "probably a Latinized form of the Germanic name Aveza, which was derived from the element avi, of unknown meaning, possibly "desired"." So that fits well here. ALSO! Avice is the name of the main character of a sci-fi book I love called _Embassytown_ by China Miéville. Hit me up if you want to chat about this book because I could go on _forever_. (Also hit me up if you want some background on name meanings because I live on Behind the Name, it's true.)
> 
>  **Rebel Rising Notes** (for those who haven't read it):
> 
>   * Xosad Hozem: a Partisan Jyn knows from her years with Saw; later she runs into him recruiting for the Alliance
>   * Five Points Station: a space station centrally located in a five-planet system. Jyn visits it twice during the book; it is during her second visit that an Imperial notices her work with a rebellion group and strong-arms her into installing a tracking code on their ship. But since the Empire is horrible they double cross her and arrest her too; this is how she winds up in Wobani. 
>   * Blue: the leader of the rebel group Jyn is working with right before she gets arrested
>   * Commander Solange, Admiral Rocwyn: two Imperials working at Five Points who hire Jyn to track the rebel group and then double cross her
>   * Idryssa is another Partisan, but she parts ways with Saw to join the Alliance even sooner than Xosad.
>   * There's one off-hand remark that Jyn spent a year on Takodana, and since she's worked with smugglers before, Jyn absolutely has been to Maz's cantina. Headcanon that she actually knows Maz.
> 

> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> PS sorry if this was marked as complete when you read it; this is only chapter one. Note to self: do not post when you are sleepy & it's past bedtime.


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